MADISON -- A Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit aiming to halt the sale of 10 acres of athletic fields at a now-closed Catholic school, allowing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson to sell the property to the borough of Madison.

Judge Deanne M. Wilson granted a summary judgment Friday in favor of the diocese and against the Bayley-Ellard High School Foundation, which filed the suit in June.

The Star-LedgerFather Geno Sylva stands before the mansion at the former Bayley-Ellard High School in Madison in this 2008 photo.

The foundation stated in its complaint that two sisters, Margaret and Susan Hawes, willed money in 1948 to create a Catholic high school, and that their unconditioned request for a charity was effectively a charitable trust. The foundation did not want the property sold in hopes the school would one day reopen.

Wilson, however, ruled a trust never existed.

"Judge Wilson determined that the action filed by the BEHS Foundation was completely without merit. The Diocese of Paterson is now considering its options with respect to its pursuit to frivolous lawsuit damages," the diocese said in a statement.

The foundation's attorney, William Marshall Jr., declined to comment.

The executors of the estates of the Hawes sisters administered their wills in 1948, and had asked Assumption Church in Morristown to carry out the founding of the high school, which opened in 1949, said William Cambria, of Morristown-based McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney and Carpenter, which represented Assumption Church. The church was a defendant in the lawsuit.

Cambria also argued that BEHS Foundation's contention that the property was protected by a charitable trust was ill timed,

"Sixty years was too far too late to bring this type of lawsuit," Cambria said.

The school closed in 2005.

The borough has applied for a $2 million grant to pay for the playing fields from the Morris County Open Space Preservation Trust Fund.